Facing up to challenges of crossing gender gap

NINE years ago Peter Hoare simply "disappeared". Into his place at work on that September morning stepped Anne Hoare.

The change had been coming for years. Peter's realisation he did not feel like a man, his first tentative attempts at trying on women's clothing, a failed marriage and two years of psychological tests and evaluation were all behind him by the time Anne was officially born on September 9, 1992.

He said: "I got up in the morning and said: ‘Today is the day and you could get fired, arrested or spat on'.

"But I did not get fired, arrested or spat on. It was something I had to do and it was something my

employers accepted.

"I got to the office at about 8.40am and I had to go to the loo and I had to think about which one to use. On the Friday when I was Peter I was using the Men's. Today I was Anne and I went into the Ladies' because I thought that was fair enough.

"The managing director's secretary came in and said I looked beautiful and then at lunchtime we went to the local bar for a drink. At the end of the day we went for another drink and again no

problems and when I got home I thought it was not going to be as difficult as I thought.

"Until recently I have had only occasional problems." Those problems were a couple of assaults and abuse from a group of men and children living near Anne's home in Cemetery Junction.

The police have helped sort that out but Anne, 41, decided to form a support group for the transsexuals living in the town, following a suggestion from Reading police's race relations officer Steve Clifton.

There are 15 transsexuals registered as living in Reading, according to Department of Health statistics, and so far two people have contacted her.

The initial reactions have been encouraging, she said, and now she believes the problems of a couple of months ago were isolated incidents.

Anne is technically not a transsexual but ‘transgendered' because she cannot have surgery that would turn her into a woman physically.

A blood condition rules out any chance that she could have a sex change operation. The condition, an over-production of red blood cells, was only discovered when she started hormone treatment and now she must be treated daily.

Peter knew from the age of four he was different from his twin brother and started dressing in women's clothing in his teens.

Apart from his sister, family members told him it was a passing phase.

Then in 1986, after a failed marriage which Peter had hoped would make his feelings clear, he was referred to the Gender Identity Unit at Charing Cross Hospital.

His employers of the time helped with his referral and he spent two years undergoing tests and analysis before the unit agreed he was a woman living in a man's body.

The tests included being able to point to north when asked, throwing darts and verbal skills - all tests the experts said show the difference between the sexes.

Once that was accepted, all Anne's documents, except her birth certificate, were changed.

Anne said her transgender was nothing to do with sex.

"I have not had sex since 1992," she said. "It is something that I don't want to do. It's in the mind."

The transgender group's sole aim is to provide support, said Anne.

"Over the past nine years, people have become more tolerant," she said. "But it can be a lonely world out there and if you have nobody to talk to then I have a listening ear, as somebody who has been through it."